Things made from real trees by definition are inspirational and creative structures that should be built in response to their environment, while being attractive, safe, long-lived, and ideally made of sustainable materials. If they can also help bridge the gulf that is developing between us and the natural world, then they have surely achieved their aim.

An off-the-shelf structure would struggle to achieve any of these requirements, but something made of real wood has the potential to fulfil them all, and can be eye-opening. In addition, they have the ability to help promote constructive management of our ancient woodlands, by using local timber, and so open a door to less dependence on tropical hardwoods.

With this in mind, I design and build structures that should withstand our climate, by combining intuition with traditional timber-framing to make best use of the timber available to us. I never fell healthy trees for my work, but use trees blown down by the wind, or those that have died standing.

Nobody really manages our woodlands any more - most are not ancient, but sprung up opportunistically as human involvement with native forests ceased. Therefore we have far too much leggy timber that is now easily felled by the wind, and there is enough dead wood to go around - my work does not deprive any wildlife of a home.

My designs are traditionally jointed, so have inherent stability, and would stand without the use of fixings, which in any case are well away from any end-grain that is exposed to the weather. Our oak timber (as opposed to American oak) is also classed as moderately resistant to the effects of weather, and is undoubtedly the native timber of choice for exterior structures in this country.